A few weeks ago, Taiwan's China Post began to fret: How could the country's incoming KMT president bring voters back down to earth after he promised them the moon and stars from a speedy economic opening to China?
This week, we got our answer. This week, President-elect Ma Ying-jeou decided to appoint a SACRIFICIAL LAMB in charge of the process -- and a willing scapegoat from another party, to boot. Now, when Ma's overly-ambitious deadlines are not met, the stink of failure will cling to some OTHER political party, not Ma's own. And when that inevitable failure DOES come, Ma will appoint a KMT man to the position, then conveniently announce that he's granting the new guy a more reasonable deadline. (Because naturally, the new appointee needs more time to "fix the damage" after the previous office-holder "botched the job so horribly" during her brief tenure.)
In the immediate term however, Ma has to suffer some abuse from his own side. (Although as Michael Turton points out, Ma will actually get brownie points for political "inclusiveness" in other quarters.) KMT members are demanding to know why government jobs are going to fringe independence party members, and not themselves. As if on cue, they now talk down the chances of a quick opening to China, saying Ma's choice is unacceptable to Beijing -- the equivalent of eating pork in front of a Muslim.
There's no avoiding that. Ma either takes a hit now for a single "poor personnel decision" or he takes a hit later for his unrealistic plans -- and I think he prefers the former for face-saving reasons. But for the while, Ma (and the rest of us) will just have to endure criticism in the form of purple prose such as this:
Ma should bear in mind that there were thousands of overseas Chinese from all four corners of the world who flew back to Taiwan on their own to vote for him, to pin their dreams on him for the return of the spring of hope after eight years of winter of despair. Their hearts are now bleeding, torn asunder by the sudden death of their dreams. [emphasis added]
Oh dear GOD, make it stop! . . .
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POSTSCRIPT: I'm struck by the Post's characterization of Ms. Lai Shin-yuan, the new Mainland Affairs Commission chairman, as "a firebrand legislator".
Um, is it asking too much that if you call a virtual unknown like Lai a firebrand, that you at least BACK IT UP with some quotes or examples or something?
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UPDATE (May 10/08): Deadline? What deadline?
President-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) never made any announcements on the date cross-strait weekend charter flights would commence, nor did he promise to implement cross-strait weekend charter flights by July 4, Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said yesterday.
Speaking of back-pedaling, the editors at Taiwan's China Post must have received the memo from KMT Central Command: Using Lai as our fall-guy (er, fall-gal) is something we'll do when the July 4th TBA deadline is missed. Back off - NOW.
And so, after spending 3 or 4 days blasting the woman last week (and lambasting Ma for nominating her), the Post made a dizzying about-face on Monday. Why won't everybody just Leave Lai Shing-yuan alone?, its editors asked.
Incredible. First the the Post calls Lai a firebrand responsible for destroying "the spring of hope after eight years of winter of despair." Then it called her nomination a betrayal:
But people with an average IQ fail to see any beauty from any angle. Ma defended his appointment by arguing that because there were 5.44 million people who did not vote for him, he has to "broaden the base of consensus." How strange is this argument? Is this the basis for betraying the 7.65 million who voted for him?
And after all that the folks at the China Post have the face to piously tell everyone ELSE to stop the witch hunt?
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